I'm still in Ireland, in the west, at the country's most bohemian city -- Galway, population 57,000. It's a university town and the place thrums with the excitement of people from all over Europe who come to hang out, come to study, come to take part in a booming economy.

Ireland, like Galway, is undergoing a renaissance and technology is playing a big part in driving the economy. Universities, like the one in Galway, are having to reinvent themselves to address the huge shortage of information technology (IT) workers in the country.

Ireland is an example Bermuda can look at and learn as it too tries to develop a more specific electronic commerce sector and train workers for the future.

Ireland is way ahead to become one of the leaders in this field as it has developed a huge base of expertise in electronics and software.

The Celtic Tiger economy has produced one of the most attractive locations in Europe for investment in electronics over the past 10 years. Over 300 electronics companies have now set up in Ireland, generating 40 percent of the country's exports and employing about 55,000 in hardware manufacturing and software development.

From 1980, about 40 percent of all European investment in electronics has been placed in Ireland. Enterprise Ireland estimates the software sector alone employs about 15,000 of those people, with 50 percent of them working for 400 Irish-owned firms with sales of $912 million.

This from a base of none ten years ago. The forecast is for 3,000 jobs to be created in the software sector over the next three years.

With the pressure on the education system to produce the workers for the industry, government here established the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs which estimated the average annual demand in the economy as 8,300 engineer and scientist technology workers.

The group estimated that the country would have to increase output of technology graduates by 22 percent a year. The group recommended four strategies for supplying workers: Conversion courses for graduates of other disciplines to move into IT; Upgrading employee skills; Creating additional places in higher level education; And improving high school graduating rates.

One simple tactic Bermuda can use right now is the system of helping current employees upgrade their computer skills. These are not high level computer skills, but the basics which from my experience many are sorely lacking.

Ireland, along with nine other European countries, adopted a computer literacy standard called the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) last year. The ECDL programme was developed to provide a common platform for helping workers get a base from which to grow within the information technology marketplace.

The course consists of seven modules which the employee completes at their own rate and on their own time in any order. The employee can even move out of Ireland and still continue the course.

As the candidate successfully passes each module, the completion of a skill is noted on their card. Once the seven modules are completed the candidate gets the license.

They are also tested on each module at one of 300 centres established around Ireland. Tests are about tasks chosen from random from a store of typical day-to-day computer operations.

The licence allows companies to bring all employees in their organisation up to a similar level of competence. It's a benchmark from which the company can then go on to further retrain its employees for additional skills needed within the organisation.

The concept was introduced into the country through the Irish Computer Society. May I be so bold as to suggest this might be a task for the Bermuda Computer Society? The US Federal courts have made a correct decision in The Recording Industry Association of America vs. Diamond Multimedia, although it does give encouragement to digital pirates.

In the case the recording industry sought to ban the sale of Rio, a device which allows users to download music from the Internet in digital form (known as MP3 files), and listen to songs as they move around -- just like a Walkman.

It's estimated that about three million music tracks are downloaded from the Internet every day, some samples provided by the record companies, the majority by pirates offering copies of songs in breach of copyright.

The federal court turned down the attempt by the industry to ban Rio, just in the same way the US courts turned down the attempt back in the 1980s of Sony to ban the sale of video recorders. A test case in the UK, where CBS attempted to get the sale of twin recording tape decks banned on the grounds these might be used to pirate some music was also defeated in the courts.

It's the same principle. You can't impute illegal motives to consumers simply because they buy a piece of new and useful technology. The record industry was attempting to hold back technology, and possibly set back a competitor.

Tech Tattle is about issues in technology. Contact Ahmed at 295-5881 ext. 248, 238-3854, or techtattle y gazette.newsmedia.bm.